Beastars Essay Script Draft Part 1 (Patreon)

BWAAAAAAAAM

I'm still ironing out some of the later sections of the script, but I figured I might as well post the part that covers seasons 1 and 2. So here ya go: 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1VTxKIpKn2LT3ppqe1iOVuqX7t6r6zVxP?usp=sharing

I don't know how Google Drive will look on your end, but I recommend switching to list mode and sorting alphabetically. Part of the process of finally slaying this thing involved splitting it into a bunch of separate documents so that writing felt less overwhelming. Once you're in a document I recommend "view -> disable print layout" so it's not spaced strangely.

This is the big ol' essay that started as a quick fun idea for last pride month, but then kept growing and changing to the monster that it is today. I think the finished thing is going to be 30k words (!!!). The numbers at the end of each chapter title is the word count. This is my extended interrogation of the queer subtext of Beastars.

Spoilers for Seasons 1 and 2 of the Beastars anime, volumes 1-11 of the manga, Beast Complex, and Luca. Also all sorts of content warnings for non-explicit discussions of sexual topics, violence, suicide, assault, etc. Oh, and spoilers for the finished video, obviously.

For those interested in reading it, what I'm looking for is whether the whole thing makes sense as a progressing argument. I've written this nightmare nonlinearly over the course of like eight months, starting over from scratch multiple times, and I'm just too deep into it. My brain fills in too many gaps about what I mean to say, so at this point I could use outside eyes to check whether I actually say all of what I mean.

Beastars fans can check me on whether I'm accurately representing the material, whereas people who know nothing about Beastars and don't care about spoilers can let me know if the script makes sense to outsiders, which are bound to be plenty of the viewers. Though you may have to imagine that visuals will accompany certain things. Don't worry about grammar. I'll be re-reading it all aloud to myself and editing both for mistakes and for performance changes.

I'm most interested in places where I can add/change something to clarify a point. I'm not interested in restructuring the whole thing or making massive changes because I've already started this whole thing over multiple times and I'm kind of in "fuck it, we're doing this" mode.

For those that missed my announcements elsewhere, I'm hoping to schedule the finished video for my birthday on April 23rd, so you have that long to watch or read everything if you want to follow along. I will be spoiling the end of the manga, but there will be a warning before I transition from season 2 to what will eventually be the third and final season's story.

Between the size of this lad and my previous post about scrapped/partially developed scripts, it should be clear why it's been a while since the last essay video. If you missed that previous script post it's over here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/video-essays-is-62304096